


The Plover and the Crocodile

by Outiko



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Interspecies Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 07:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20926697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outiko/pseuds/Outiko
Summary: At first Grima wasn't sure of what to think about her Summoner. He wasn't afraid, or groveling at her feet. Yet he seemed to like her, even in her true form. To like her enough to take care of her hygiene. Like some tiny bird grooming a massive crocodile...





	1. Grooming

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posting this from another site, under a different username. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

When Grima first brought forth her true form, she had expected a certain reaction from the humans. Her wings had blocked out the sun. Her breath had laid waste to the battlefield before her. She had expected blind fear, revulsion and worship.

She had not expected the soft look of awe and wonder on his face. She had certainly not expected the way his hand actually reached out to the sky, as if to touch her. While the rest of the worms around him shrank back and cringed in fear, he had reached out for her. No fear in him at all.

This had surprised her, to be sure. Perhaps even rattled her. Not even the Grimleal had looked upon her with such naked joy in their eyes.

She really should have taken it as a sign of things to come.

—————-

Now, months later, the strange Summoner spent his afternoons taking walks on her back, be she taking a nap on the castle grounds or soaring through the air. He always made sure to talk with her as he did, and soon learned to read her moods by her body. Not that of her vessel, no. He was simply gods-awful at that. At reading any human’s body language, really.

Yet her enormous, serpentine form he could interpret with ease. She was honestly surprised the first time she realized she hadn’t said a word to him through her vessel in weeks, yet he had not misinterpreted her even once. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say she’d been touched as well.

He enjoyed polishing her horns and teeth as well. Not in a servile sort of way, as a Grimleal pawn might in order to win her favor. It actually took her more than two days to notice when he first started, as he made a point of only doing it as she slept. Once she revealed she knew, however, he’d simply smiled and asked her if she minded opening her mouth a little. Just so he could reach her inner jaws, make sure no bits of soldier were stuck there (there were, it’s important to note. She felt an immense sense of relief when he pulled a decaying torso out from between two of her teeth).

It became a ritual of sorts for them. Every day, after battle, he’d make a point of grooming her true form with the utmost care. It was a big job, and he left the horns to be polished only once a month, but her teeth? He made sure they shone like pearls every day.

And it baffled her to no end. He wasn’t afraid. In fact, he seemed to be downright happy to spend time on or around Grima’s true form. He looked genuinely joyful to groom the bits of herself she couldn’t reach. And he seemed to want nothing in return. When she confronted him about it, he shrugged and said it was fine, he didn’t mind at all. It infuriated her. She did not want to be indebted to a measly worm, but she also did not want him to stop. It took effort not to preen now when she caught her reflection by a lake. She sometimes even took a short dive in it, just so her scales could match her fangs and horns.

She felt good too. Food no longer tasted of rotting soldier. She could actually enjoy the taste of bear now.

And one day, after a particularly long battle that left him worn out, as he plucked some arrows from the scales by her forewing’s joint, he stopped moving. Grima turned her head curiously to see what was delaying him, and most certainly not concerned for his well-being at all. What she saw made her sigh, but the jury’s still out on whether it was exasperation or relief.

He had ceased removing the arrows because he had fallen asleep on her wing. He was snoring now, curled up in a fetal position among her feathers, looking for all the world like a tiny, vulnerable, chick in its nest. Grima let out a long hiss of breath, ruffled her feathers a little so they covered him better (and she certainly did not think it was adorable when he hugged one close to himself with a smile in his face), and lay down her massive head to sleep. Six hellish lights blinked out in the night. And she decided this may as well be his payment for the service of grooming her. After all, humans liked fluffy, feather-filled beds, didn’t they? Or something to that effect.

She dearly hoped they liked feathery beds.

—————————-

Weeks later, much remained the same. He slept nightly on her wings, curled up among her feathers. She insisted. Wordlessly, of course, simply extending her wing a little once he was done taking care of her. 

As the afternoon sun shone down on Grima, warming her up pleasantly, she shifted her mouth just so, so that the Summoner could reach around her inner teeth better with that long, bizarre cleaning implement he had designed himself for the sole purpose of cleaning her swordlike fangs. A very pleasant sensation matched the sun as a stray bit of armor was dislodged from behind one of them, and with great effort, she resisted the urge to run her tongue over it. She might hit her little man if she did.

He clambered out of her mouth shortly after, his bucket and tool in hand. Grima clicked her mouth shut, absentmindedly licking her teeth as she looked down at him, now that she had the chance. Three red eyes focused on a small figure, facing them without any fear. He was drenched in sweat from the effort, his coat discarded on the grass hours earlier and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but the smile on his face was bright and sunny enough to rival the Askr princesss’s.

And he was looking at her three left eyes, she now realized. Had been since he climbed out. That happy smile still in place. Far away, her vessel’s lips curled up in a warm smile to match it, much creeping out the ever-vigilant and always suspicious Lucina.

The Summoner kept looking at her eyes, and in some way seemed to tell that she was smiling back at him. His smile grew wider, and a slight tint of red touched his cheeks. Grima chuckled fondly, a rumble deep inside her enormous throat; an alien sensation in an apparatus so used to roars and screeches and cackles. Then again, she mused, bumping the Summoner gently with her snout and ignoring the sense of joy she felt when he stroked her scales rather lovingly, much in this world was new to her.

And she thought she rather liked it.


	2. Philosophy at Swordpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina cannot agree with the Summoner's decisions regarding Grima. Perhaps a talk is in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gets a bit more philosophical. The tone shifts a fair bit from the previous one. I still hope you'll enjoy it, nonetheless.

Lucina’s eyes were trained on the sprawled form of the Fell Dragon as she approached it, but her eyes flickered upwards to its horns, one of which was currently serving as a perch for a lone human. He was kneeling dangerously close to its edge, hands busy wringing a mop’s head over a bucket. He was either extremely confident in his own balance, or trusted the horrid beast beneath him not to move too brusquely. A distressing idea, in Lucina’s head. That anyone could trust that treacherous snake… how ridiculous. Her grip tightened over her blade’s hilt, bolstering her confidence by its presence alone.

“Move aside, Summoner,” Lucina said as she stepped forward, Falchion in hand. “I would not want you caught in battle.”

The Summoner blinked in surprise and looked up from where he had been working, already mopping the horn’s surface in the time Lucina had been musing. He looked down at her, confusion in his eyes, before panic bloomed in his expression and he twisted around, as if looking for someone.

“What are you doing?” Lucina asked, not expecting this particular reaction. It was with no small amount of dread that she noticed Grima’s eyes had opened, and now regarded her, unreadable and cold.

“You said a fight was coming,” the Summoner called back down, unaware of the staredown that had been initiated. “I assumed the Emblian army had broken through!”

“Wh-What?” Lucina broke eye contact with the Fell Dragon, stunned. “No! I meant Grima! Move aside so I may slay Grima!”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” The Summoner seemed calm now. He turned to face Lucina, but instead of hopping down from the horn, he sat down on its edge, legs dangling off, and looking down at her with a calm expression on his face. 

“No. No, I don’t think I will.”

“What?” Lucina was genuinely bewildered. “But can’t you see?! This must be done, Summ-!”

“Plover, please!” He called down before she could finish. “Call me Plover!”

Lucina couldn’t help but flush. The Plegians (Tharja, Henry, and Aversa) had taken to affectionately calling him “the plover” once they’d noticed his devotion to the Fell Dragon’s hygiene. Henry had explained to the more curious Heroes that they were referencing a small bird from Plegia, which seemed to enjoy a unique relationship with the vicious crocodiles in their rivers. It would clean the reptiles’ teeth, pecking away at anything caught in them, and the normally voracious crocodile refrained from closing its jaws around them. Over time, “the plover” had simply become a nickname, “Plover”. It didn’t help that very few Heroes had actually bothered to ask his name. Or that the nickname seemed to fit him better than any name could. It was a bit embarrassing that he had found out.

“So where’s this coming from?” The Summ- no, Plover, asked Lucina from all the way atop Grima’s horn. It spoke to how much time he spent on the dragon that he seemed to know which volume would carry best to the ground. He didn’t sound like he was shouting.

“It has killed hundreds! Thousands! It needs to be stopped! To be killed before it can unleash destruction here in Askr! Please, P-Plover,” she cursed internally as she stumbled over the informal form of address for the tactician of the Order of Heroes, “let me fulfill my purpose!”

He seemed to think for a moment. Lucina caught Grima’s eyes again, and started shaking as they fixed on her again. The beast hadn’t moved once, and its eyes held no aggression, but… was Lucina imagining it, or was there mockery in those three hellish red spheres?

“She,” Plover suddenly called out, breaking the spell over Lucina.

“Wh-What?” the future Exalt could only ask. And it was frustrating to realize that this whole time, that had been her biggest reaction. Surprise. Not decisive action.

“She,” Plover repeated. “You keep calling Grima ‘it’, but she’s, well, a she.”

“I… How is that relevant?!” Lucina felt so, so frustrated. Even dealing with the other versions of herself didn’t vex her like this.

“It’s not,” the Summoner admitted. “But I felt it was important.” For the first time, Grima’s eyes looked away from Lucina and fixed on the Summoner, and Lucina could never have imagined they could look so soft, so gentle. The great dragon rumbled loudly, shaking the earth around them moderately. The Summoner held to Grima’s horn with almost casual ease, not minding the razor-sharp edge of the bony appendage. Lucina stumbled a little, but kept her balance, ready to dodge an attack, until she realized…

_“Wait,”_ she thought._ “Is Grima_ purring?!”

“In any case, I’m sorry, but I have to deny your request, Lucina,” Plover went on, and to his credit, he did look apologetic. “Unless you can answer one simple question.”

“Ask your question, then,” Lucina declared, confident once again. If this was all that stood between her and Grima’s defeat, then she would answer any question unfalteringly. Whatever was required of her. 

“Here goes, then,” he said, and leaned forward, as if to look at Lucina even more closely. Grima was quiet once more, and its- her eyes, Lucina grudgingly granted, once more only on her. 

“How many Plegians?”

“I-I’m sorry?” Lucina asked, her confidence wavering only a little. What kind of question was this? The Summoner’s idea of a joke?

“I should have elaborated,” Plover murmured, but the silence was such after Grima’s minor earthquake that Lucina heard him, even if vaguely. “Here it goes again: 

"How many Plegians have died to that sword?” he asked, pointing at Falchion. 

“I haven’t-” Lucina began, not quite liking where this was going.

“And just to be clear,” he went on, “I don’t just mean at your hands. At your father’s too. And his father’s. And _that_ one’s important,” he said with a rather pointed look. “I have heard he waged a rather bloody war on Plegia in his time. How many dead, do you think?”

“That was different!” Lucina called up, but a pit in her stomach had opened up at the mention of her grandfather. There was no denying that his actions had led in the long term to Validar’s possession of the Plegian throne. Emmeryn had spent her life trying to undo the hatred and resentment born from his brutal actions. 

“It was?” Plover seemed surprised. “I don’t see a lot of ways how that could be.”

“Of course you don’t!” Lucina yelled, getting angry now at his flippancy. “You tend to Grima! You serve it-”

_“Her.”_

“-almost like you worship it!” She went on, not hearing his firm correction. “Almost like you’re-” and a thought occurred to her now. A sobering thought that horrified her, but one she chastised herself for not thinking before.

“Like you’re Grimleal…” Lucina whispered, horror-struck. It made sense, she realized. His slavish devotion to Grima’s comfort and appearance. His claims of Grima’s innocence, his insinuations that the Ylissean royal family were as bad… It all pointed to-

“Okay, now I _know_ you’ve been hitting Gray’s Duma Moss a little too hard,” Plover called down, snapping her out of her spiral. 

“… What?!” She spluttered out after a few seconds of shocked silence, mortified. Was he implying that she used substances?! 

“Word to the wise,” he kept going, oblivious to her distress, “don’t keep going after the third toke! It builds up!”

“Stop shouting that!” She hissed, red in the face and glancing behind her to make sure nobody was hearing this. If this rumor ever got back to her father…!

Grima’s throat rumbled again, this time in quick succession and with higher intensity, and Lucina went scarlet in the face, in both rage and mortification, when she realized the Fell Dragon was laughing at her embarrasment. 

That brought her back to the present situation, and seemed to do the same for the Summoner, even if he still had a smile on his face.

“No, I’m not Grimleal,” he said gently. “I don’t worship her, any more than you worship…” his brow furrowed.

“Gerome?” He asked. She blinked, confused. “Inigo?” He tried again. “Severa? Brady? Laurent? Robin? Kje-” he stopped when he saw her go red one earlier, and blinked in honest surprise. “Robin, huh? Way to break the bro code on that one…” he murmured. Grima snorted as well, amused in some way by this knowledge. Lucina could only growl at the two of them.

“Well, I don’t worship her. Same way you don’t worship Robin, and he doesn’t worship you. Not literally, anyway,” he finished. Now it was Lucina’s turn to snort in derision. How ridiculous.

“How can what Robin and I share be anything like what you and Grima have? They are different bonds in every way, are they not?” She asked, mentally comparing the two in front of her to a twisted version of what Robin and her father shared. Trust and camaraderie beyond what regular people shared. That, at least, she could respect. Perhaps she could understand now why he seemed so hellbent on-

Aaaaaaand he was blushing bright scarlet now. And avoiding eye contact with her. Things certainly couldn’t get more awkward, Lucina thought. 

Until she noticed Grima staring directly at her. And as soon as Lucina made eye contact, its massive, bony, scaly eyebrows rose, then fell. Once. And again. And again. 

Desperately trying to ignore the fact that _Grima_ had just waggled its eyebrows at her (and hoo boy, would _that_ one require some therapy to get past), Lucina latched on to the last piece of rational discussion she could remember hearing, and tried to bring this whole thing back to Ylisse. Zenith. Wherever!

“But why compare Falchion to i- to her?” She amended, seeing the testy look on Plover’s face. Once that faded, however, he looked relieved to be back on track. He shrugged again.

“Just wanted to point out that if we were to measure something’s malice by how many it has slain, then your blade is pretty evil in its own right.”

“That was a war. It was different,” Lucina argued. 

“Does that make their deaths any more just? I’m fairly sure many of those soldiers also thought they were doing the right thing. I doubt that even half of them were zealots at all, either.”

“And what of _her?_” Lucina asked, anger creeping back into her voice as she pointed at Grima. “What of the many slain by her? The deaths to come if she were to be left unchecked?!" 

"Just as terrible and unjust,” Plover said agreeably. Lucina paused. She’d expected him to argue against this. To claim Grima was innocent of any wrongdoing. The dragon herself held Lucina’s gaze, almost defiantly. 

“Everybody she killed,” he kept going slowly, picking his words with care, “was a life taken. And it was as unfair as the ones taken by Ylisse. The ones taken by Falchion. But it is as you said. It was war. You can’t win a war without enemy casualties. The world isn’t so nice. Hell, we’re at war _right now_." 

"But just as Ylisse fought their war against Plegia and against Valm, and as you fought yours against fate,” he went on, “she was fighting her own war." 

"Against who?” Lucina demanded. Plover grimaced and scratched the back of his head. He seemed almost unsure of his next words.

“Against humanity,” he said, glancing away. “Against people who might seek to use her, to hurt her.”

_**“I chose,”**_ Grima’s voice hissed out from between her jaws, vast and grotesque, sibilant as the wind in a seaside cave. Lucina could feel every bone in her body vibrate as the gravelly sound washed over her, and only through great force of will did she resist the urge to lift Falchion before her, _**“to wage my war on all of mankind. Let none who might have sought my pain or my service survive. If leaving naught but the bones and ash of the human race was what it took for my survival… then so be it.”**_

“But… But that’s insane!” Lucina argued, her voice shaking after Grima’s first words in the discussion. “To eliminate all humans over the potential of one seeking to use or destroy you…" 

Plover drew in a deep breath, and Lucina knew from the pain in his eyes that he did not like saying what came next.

"As insane as trying to kill your husband over the chance he might be an unwitting enemy agent.”

Lucina’s breath caught in her throat, and for an instant she saw red. This man, this non-combatant, this _traitorous filth_ who knew _nothing_ of war was daring to compare _her_ to _Grima_?!

But… he wasn’t entirely wrong, was he? She _had_ turned on Robin. She wasn’t able to go through with it, even after he spread his arms wide with a smile and said to go ahead, that his life was hers. But she had turned on him nonetheless.

And she thought of her original timeline. Of Grima’s future. When everything in Ylisse, Plegia, and Regna Ferox seemed to be out for her blood. When only her friends and family remained at her side. When the whole world was hellbent on her destruction. How close had she come to despairing then? 

She’d been willing to do anything to fix that, hadn’t she? To destroy her enemy and save those she loved, she’d been willing to bypass time in its entirety. But if she’d had world-ending power at her disposal and no loved ones to save… could she really say with any certainty she’d have been that much different?

With a heavy, heavy sigh, Lucina sheathed Falchion. She turned to leave, but Plover’s voice stopped her.

“You never did answer the question, you know,” he said. But it was quiet, almost gentle. Lucina’s fingers found Falchion’s hilt again. But instead of the usual comfort and strength its presence brought her, the sword felt heavy with questions she’d never have posed before. To herself or to others. 

How many Plegians? No. That wasn’t the true question. How many people? Plegians, Valmese, Alteans and people of Gra. Humans, Manaketes, and Beastfolk. How many had met their end on its blade?

“Far too many,” she finally said, her voice and heart as heavy as the sword at her side. “And yet… as many as were needed,” she finished her thought, and felt both revulsion and disgust with herself for even saying it. Because even among the heroes who had killed because they had to, because it was the only way to stop disaster from ending even more lives, death stained the blade. Of innocents in their own way. Her father had told her of the Plegian general Mustafa, for one. And more than that, the shadow of her grandfather darkened the grim duty and noble resolve that the Sword of Seals should embody into something much worse. There? There lay no justification. Only cruelty.

“We do what we must, don’t we?” Plover asked her softly. She turned her head to look at him, and found him looking at her with a sad smile. 

But it was Grima she was looking at when Lucina answered.

“Yes,” Lucina said. “We do." 

And for the briefest of moments, Lucina thought some understanding passed between the two of them. But it was only an instant. Lucina turned back again, looking at the castle.

"It’s not over yet,” she called out loudly, knowing they could hear her. “I’m still not entirely convinced. And I have earned a fight with her.”

It was a few seconds before she got her answer.

_ **“You have.”** _

Lucina nodded in acknowledgement, and walked away. Maybe it was her imagination, but Falchion felt lighter now than a minute ago. She would have to talk with her father… and with King Marth, if she could find him. Maybe they could help her make sense of this.

———————————-

They watched her go, curious and apprehensive at the same time. Then Grima’s eyes turned to Plover. The question was not voiced, but he knew it anyway. 

“I think we gave her a lot to mull over,” he said softly. Grima rumbled in response, her eyes sliding towards Lucina and following her as she left. 

“Gave you something to think about too, huh?” He asked with a smile. Grima didn’t answer. But with the two of them, that was an answer in itself. He simply laughed and decided to put the words away for today. He still had a job to do, after all. He hoisted himself back onto her horn, careful not to shear his calves off as he did, and picked up the mop. Grima’s eyes soon drifted shut, as she fell gently asleep.

As the afternoon wore on, the plover continued to clean its beloved crocodile. Not out of hunger, as other birds had done in the past. It cleaned because it wanted the crocodile to be happy. And the crocodile knew this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always found Fire Emblem's black and white views on morality a bit awkward. I absolutely can believe there are evil people in the world, and some work in storytelling. But in cases like Grima or Anankos, they felt a bit... empty. I dunno. This was a thought exercise more than anything else. Any thoughts you all may have are still very much appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought there wasn't enough content featuring Grima's dragon form. It is their true body, after all, but the focus is on the vessels most of the time. Figured I might as well contribute to this a little bit. Hope you liked it!


End file.
